


Flowers

by kittybenzedrine



Series: Timelines [56]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Language of Flowers, Light Romance, Mild Language, Witchy Bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23557843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybenzedrine/pseuds/kittybenzedrine
Summary: A small eternity ago, Renee gave him a set of worry beads. She made the beads herself when she went through a phase of making things out of resin, crafted the entire thing on her own. Whenever things get to be too much, Leo sits back and pulls the string from his pants pocket and strokes each smooth bead between his fingers._____All pieces of the Timelines series are standalones and can be read without context.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character (Implied)
Series: Timelines [56]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/728796
Kudos: 5





	Flowers

A small eternity ago, Renee gave him a set of worry beads. She made the beads herself when she went through a phase of making things out of resin, crafted the entire thing on her own. Whenever things get to be too much, Leo sits back and pulls the string from his pants pocket and strokes each smooth bead between his fingers.

There's twenty on the string, filled with different flowers and swirls of mica powders. Within each bead is a different flower or petal from her garden. They're all unique. Each bead is beautiful in its own right, but he still has a few that he likes better than the rest.

Inside of the first bead are small nibs of a deep purple. A pale, glassy purple is mixed into the clear surface, almost like a breeze around the tiny flowers.

 _Lavender_ , he hears in her soft voice, _it has a lot of meanings. Devotion, calmness, purity, but in the context of the worry beads, I like to think it's just calmness._ _I hate how the shit smells, but there's a reason people shove it in just about anything you can think of. Lotion, bath salts, soap, you get the gist. It's supposed to be soothing. So when you're using this one, try to think about being calm. Think about that real good bath you get to take after a long day of work, or that massage I gave you a week ago that knocked you out._

The little pink ones are fascinating. They're even smaller than his pinky nail and so desperately beautiful. They would look lovely surrounding his house in bushels, but they're too small to have the effect he would want from them. A starburst splash of pink within only helps to accentuate the beauty of the flowers.

 _Pink alyssum flowers. You said these were your favorite when you saw my garden for the first time._ Leo smiles to himself a little, thinking of the mass of pink, white, and red flowers taking over an entire planter. They're indeed his favorite. _So, alyssum used to actually be used as a treatment for rabies? Or, at least, like, treating the bites. I don't know how well that worked out, honestly. But they're supposed to mean 'worth beyond beauty'. Some bullshit witchy website said it to use it to protect against glamour spells and hexes, and should help with you emotional balance- stop laughing asshole, I didn't come up with this shit._

_I guess maybe with this one... I know it's 'worth beyond beauty', but think about the pretty things that make you happy. Think about those sunsets that made you want to pull over just so you could watch them uninterrupted. Think about that really gorgeous pigment you mixed for that painting that one time, the red with the gold in it? Or- remember that time we spent the whole day at the national park? When you picked dewberries with me even though we looked like lunatics and our hands were purple when we finished? I like that one. I liked the shade of purple the berries dyed our skin. That was a good day._

He likes the shade of the blue one more than anything. While the blue pigment mixed in is lovely enough, he simply enjoys the flower within. The shade is like holding a little piece of the sky between his fingers, with a splash of sunshine at the center.

 _The forget-me-nots were almost too big to fit in the beads, actually, but I eventually got them to fit and look good. These ones are kind of sad? Kind of. They're a flower of true love, but also remembrance._ In his mind, he can still see Renee's fingers idly toying with the bead. _You give this flower to someone when you really respect them, when you really fucking love them._ _You give this flower to someone to remember you by. So... Remember with this bead. Remember someone that brings you comfort. Remember your late wife, if it's not too sad for you. Remember your best friends. Remember me, even, if that helps._

The final favorite is just as tiny as the rest. He sees it everywhere he goes, be it in his yard, along the sides of the roads, or even pushing through old cracking concrete. It's made up of four tiny, delicate petals that Renee complained about endlessly. They rip easily, apparently. The bead itself is swirled with a silvery pigment, mixed in in just such a way that it looks like it's caressing the flowers.

 _These are polypremum flowers. Better known as juniperleaf or rustweed. If I'm being really honest with you, I picked them out of your yard a while back. Anyway, I scoured the internet and couldn't find any kind of meaning on the flowers. Like, none at all. But I did some reading on the plants, and they're pretty hardy._ There's a smile as she examines the tiny white blooms. _They don't really grow in mountains, but they thrive in this climate._ _They do well in 'disturbed areas', whatever the fuck that means. Since they don't have an official meaning, I think my own will work._

 _Resiliency. That- yes, that's all, you dick. They're resilient. Think about being resilient to this-_ and he can almost feel her as she swats at him, laughing as he takes her by the wrists and pins her down to the couch to stop the assault.

The beads gently click as he toys with them, one falling down onto the other. By the time he's finished with them, including the sixteen beads he doesn't quite have memorized, he doesn't recall what's bothering him. And when he does recall, it doesn't seem quite as bad as he remembers it being. Leaning back, he closes his eyes and starts on the first bead. It can't hurt to go through them just one more time.

**Author's Note:**

> ya boi just really loves flowers okay and ya boi is really sad that he doesn't have time to garden anymore :(
> 
> As always, I love hearing from you guys. Feel free to comment or hit me with that sweet, sweet Kudos button.
> 
> I have [my blog](http://iwillpooponthefloor.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you'd like to check that out, though it's mostly unrelated content. I'm not active much on there, but I'll try to get back to you if you'd rather contact me there.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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